This has been a big year for GM's organization alignment, with President Fritz Henderson opening up about the brand issue snafu and the appointment of four brand czars. HUMMER was meant to join forces with Cadillac and Saab in a premium channel, but while HUMMER is still in the family, it's apparently been put out on the lawn. GM Inside News (GMI) reports that GM is treating HUMMER as a goner, saying that the H4 program is on life support for handover to the next buyer, and the H3 GMT-700 program is kaput.
The bigger hearsay is that GM's board is considering euthanizing GMC or Pontiac. Those two brands were to be aligned in a brand channel with Buick (PBG). Getting rid of GMC could make some kind of sense, since it's entirely brand-engineered vehicles with some of the worst mileage numbers in the fleet. Shunning Pontiac would be a surprise to us since the Solstice and G8 have given it a nice brand awareness boost and it's got some products in the pipeline. If GMC or Pontiac did go, the GM board would consider folding Saturn into the PBG channel to maintain sales volume. In corporate-speak, we believe this is called GM's "gloves off" phase.
General Motors is on a campaign to streamline and cut through red tape, and to that end is changing the management structure of its brands. As of June 1, GM is establishing four new "brand czars" who will have increased control over their products and be responsible for their divisions' successes and failures. Pontiac-Buick-GMC, Cadillac-HUMMER-Saab, Chevrolet and Saturn will each be accountable to a new brand chief, who in turn will report to the corporate VP of sales, service and marketing. The positions, which will all be vice-president-level appointments (except for Saturn, whose brand czar will coordinate with Opel), will have increased input into the overall process from product development through sales.
The new brand czars will replace the five regional general managers that have acted until now as an insulator between the brands and its dealers. Insiders are hailing the move as a positive step, helping General Motors to streamline its bureaucracy.
